A poll of Asian Americans reveals that they do not favor amending the constitution to enshrine discrimination against gays. (SJ Mercury-News)

The poll found that 57 percent of Asian-Americans likely to vote in the Nov. 4 election oppose Proposition 8, which would reverse last spring’s California Supreme Court ruling that gave gays and lesbians the right to marry. Only 32 percent planned to vote for the measure. Eleven percent were undecided.

The poll (pdf) found the proposed amendment to be out of favor with all subsets of this population.

Across all national origin groups in the survey, more opposed than favored the changing the Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. An outright majority opposed the measure among Chinese, Filipinos, Koreans, and Vietnamese, and a near majority of Japanese Americans (46%) and Asian Indians (47%) did so as well.

From my experience, Asian-Americans are a pretty liberal bunch (we’re talking first and second generations and so on). However, newly arrived immigrants from Asia are the exact (often, but not always) opposite.

At least here in San Francisco, the newly arrived Chinese Community and their leaders like Rose Tsai have engaged in anti-gay hype and organizing, and yes, unfortunately it is often Christian-based. The same could be said for Russians and Latinos.

The problem conservatives have with organizing the right-leaning new immigrants is that, for the most part, many of them do not speak English, can’t vote, and are loath to make any kind of public political statement or join a movement – especially as many of them originate from authoritarian cultures where any kind of political activity can have serious personal ramifications.

The exception to this is the slavic-speaking anti-gay movement based around Sacramento, where newly-arrived Russians, Ukranians, Lithuanians, etc. have imported the extreme right-wing ideology that has resulted in numerous attacks at Gay Pride parades in the former Soviet Union and, now, attacks on our home soil in the murder case of Satendar Singh in Sacramento.

From my experience living in China, there’s a huge divide in attitudes between young people and their parents. I’m out to all of my friends over there, and I was in most cases the first openly gay person they’d ever met. Still, I received no judgment or disapproval. In fact, many were genuinely curious about gay people. I’ve also known a lot of of Chinese gays who are out to their classmates and don’t experience any problems.

I’ve encountered young people with anti-gay attitudes as well, but I’ve found them to be a lot more malleable and less stubborn than young people with anti-gay attitudes here.

China still has a really long way to go on gay rights, but when progress starts happening, it’ll probably happen a lot more easily and quickly than it has here. I really think it has a lot to do with the country being officially atheist and without the long and entrenched history of Christian belief that we have here.

In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.

When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.

In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.

From the Inside: Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out”

On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.

Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!

Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.

Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.

Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.

The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.